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Necessity vs Excess - What's the difference?

necessity | excess |

As nouns the difference between necessity and excess

is that necessity is the quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite while excess is the state of surpassing or going beyond limits; the being of a measure beyond sufficiency, necessity, or duty; that which exceeds what is usual or proper; immoderateness; superfluity; superabundance; extravagance; as, an excess of provisions or of light.

As a adjective excess is

more than is normal, necessary or specified.

necessity

Noun

(necessities)
  • The quality or state of being necessary, unavoidable, or absolutely requisite.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-28, author=(Joris Luyendijk)
  • , volume=189, issue=3, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Our banks are out of control , passage=Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. […]  But the scandals kept coming, […]. A broad section of the political class now recognises the need for change but remains unable to see the necessity of a fundamental overhaul.}}
  • The condition of being needy or necessitous; pressing need; indigence; want.
  • That which is necessary; a requisite; something indispensable.
  • *
  • Love and compassion are necessities , not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
  • That which makes an act or an event unavoidable; irresistible force; overruling power; compulsion, physical or moral; fate; fatality.
  • * 1804 , Wordsworth,
  • I stopped, and said with inly muttered voice,
    'It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:
    This neither is its courage nor its choice,
    But its necessity in being old.
  • The negation of freedom in voluntary action; the subjection of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual, to inevitable causation; necessitarianism.
  • (legal) Greater utilitarian good; used in justification of a criminal act .
  • (legal, in the plural) Indispensable requirements (of life).
  • Synonyms

    * (state of being necessary) inevitability, certainty

    Antonyms

    * (state of being necessary) impossibility, contingency * (something indispensable) luxury

    Derived terms

    * make a virtue of necessity

    Anagrams

    *

    excess

    English

    Noun

    (es) (Spherical excess)
  • The state of surpassing or going beyond limits; the being of a measure beyond sufficiency, necessity, or duty; that which exceeds what is usual or proper; immoderateness; superfluity; superabundance; extravagance; as, an excess of provisions or of light.
  • * , King John , act 4, scene 2:
  • To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
    To throw a perfume on the violet, . . .
    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess .
  • * , "Jealosy", in The Poetical Works of William Walsh (1797), page 19 (Google preview):
  • That kills me with excess' of grief, this with ' excess of joy.
  • The degree or amount by which one thing or number exceeds another; remainder.
  • The difference between two numbers is the excess of one over the other.
  • An undue indulgence of the appetite; transgression of proper moderation in natural gratifications; intemperance; dissipation.
  • * :
  • And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess .
  • * 1667 , , Paradise Lost , Book III:
  • Fair Angel, thy desire . . .
    . . . leads to no excess
    That reaches blame
  • (geometry) Spherical excess, the amount by which the sum of the three angles of a spherical triangle exceeds two right angles. The spherical excess is proportional to the area of the triangle.
  • (British, insurance) A condition on an insurance policy by which the insured pays for a part of the claim.
  • Synonyms

    * (qualifier) (l)

    Antonyms

    * deficiency

    Adjective

    (-)
  • More than is normal, necessary or specified.
  • Derived terms

    * excess baggage

    See also

    * usury